Messenger or Angel?

Dennis Bratcher

This page is still being developed

The English word “angel” has traditionally been used to translate the
Hebrew word malak (as in Genesis 19:1). Yet
in Hebrew the word malak means “messenger,” especially the envoy
of a leader or king who communicates the king's wishes and represents
the king (as in 2 Samuel 5:11). The word is translated simply
“messenger” in the NRSV over 100 times. It has no inherent connection to
any divine being. Even when the term is modified as “messenger of
God” (malak yhvh) there is nothing in the term itself that
demands what we mean by a supernatural being. We assume this to be
so because of our understanding of the English term “angel.” But
in Hebrew the “messenger of God” can as easily be, and
probably more often is, a human being.

Yet in English the term “angel” evokes a very specific mental image of
the traditional white robed winged figure that makes grand
pronouncements from God. That image has come to be associated with the
English word angel over two millennia of paintings, poetry, writing, and
biblical interpretation. While the word “angel” comes into English
through the Greek word angelos, which itself originally meant
“messenger,” the English term no longer means that.

So to use “angel” to translate malak introduces a level of
interpretation, and baggage, into the English that is not at all present
in the original Hebrew text. This creates the potential for
misunderstanding the communication of the text, and the potential for
creating bad theology, simply because the biblical terms are not
understood in their own context.